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Recent research in the Journal of Marketing found that smartphones enhance “consumer self-disclosure” Results from three large-scale field studies and two controlled experiments show that people self-disclose more when generating content on their smartphones versus personal computers. Reasons could be feelings of comfort with the phone, a tendency to focus on the disclosure task on hand or emotional association with the device. [More]

Our ability to socialize has decreased significantly as a result of the pandemic. But even pre-COVID, not everyone was able to be out and about to make new friends. While there are plenty of opportunities to find “friends” on various social media channels and other online networks, the question is how authentic relationships can be that start - or even remain - online? Studies suggest there are benefits to becoming active in multiple online groups to find community and that authentic relationships are possible. [More]

The pandemic pushed much of medical care to online, virtual platforms, virtually overnight. But is Internet-based health care, particularly mental health care, a safe and viable option? A new study published in JAMA Psychiatry looked at the effects of Internet versus face-to-face cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for health anxiety. [More]

Experts around the world are racing to develop a vaccine for COVID19. But there is a group of people who are unlikely to sign up: vaccine skeptics. Vaccine skepticsm has become increasingly widespread, and researchers from Texas Tech University may have found the reason why. [More]

Meena, featured on Google’s AI blog, is a chatbot trained in a conversational model. The concept is that it conducts conversations that are more sensible and specific than existing chatbots. This chatbot, trained with 2.6 billion parameters, is designed to offer more humanlike conversations. [More]

A study from the University of Arizona examining the habits of teenage girls who take selfies found that taking and distributing selfies on social media isn’t associated with poor body confidence. But selfies can become a problem if teenage girls spend a lot of time debating what photo of themselves to share, or heavily editing photos before sharing. [More]

We're in a volatile political climate in the United States and are heading into what will be an interesting election. Whether it’s a twitter storm or fake news, there’s plenty of ammunition for social media fights over political beliefs. And recent research found that general social media use has a negative effect on political knowledge, which may only fuel the fire in upcoming months. [More]

Dopamine fasting encourages people to avoid stimulation to become better versions of themselves. Dr. Cameron Sepah describes it as “an evidence-based technique to manage addictive behaviors, by restricting them to specific periods of time, and practicing fasting from impulsively engaging in them, in order to regain behavioral flexibility.” [More]

Break ups are never easy, but in the age of social media, they’re even more complicated. That’s why a group of researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder set out to explore break ups in the age of Facebook. [More]

Facebook rolled out new photo filters and stickers to “act as an invitation for friends who might be struggling to reach out for support through Messenger.” This is meant to be a tool to encourage users to connect with friends online about mental health. But there are concerns about passive data collection on different platforms, such as Facebook, so it is debatable whether this will help or hurt mental health. [More]